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Friday, February 10, 2017

Audiobook Review: Becoming Dragon by Eve Langlais

Series:

Dragon Point #1

Pub. Date:

Jan. 25, 2017

Publisher:

Tantor Audio

Length:

7 hrs 22 min

Source:

Publisher

Dragon Point is a spinoff of Eve Langlais' Bitten Point series, which you may recall featured gator shifters down in the Florida Everglades. I have only read the first book of that series so I had the gist of what was going on and I didn't feel overly lost (absent a few character references)... however I am glad that I had read at least one book so I knew some of the background story. I would recommend at least starting with that series so you know about Bitek and some of the atrocities that occurred. If you aren't able to read any of that series, know that Bitek is a shifter-owned and run genetic testing facility that is experimenting on shifters and humans alike in a bid for world domination.

Brandon Mercer was a regular ol' swamp gator (shifter) who got caught and coerced by his Uncle Parker to sacrifice himself and remain at Bitek while they conducted genetic experiments, turning him into a monster. Parker has Brandon's sister and dangles her well-being over his head to keep Brandon compliant. Brandon escaped during some unexplained event at Bitek and now he must keep to the shadows to avoid scaring the general populace, who might just shoot him full of silver. Brandon had an almost single-minded focus to find and rescue his sister, yet he must deal with his new reality, particularly the fear that he is losing himself to his beast.

Aimi Silvergrace is a silver dragon, a shifter type that most other shifters don't know exist because they went into hiding so long ago. The dragons matriarchal society see themselves as royalty and hold themselves (and the knowledge of their existence) above others of the shapeshifter races. Aimi is running against a sort of society-imposed biological clock, and she must find and mate a male dragon before her 28th birthday. Aimi and her female relatives had all the stereotypical dragon characteristics... arrogance, greed, hoarding and haughty behavior.

Aimi was delighted to find a handsome unmated male dragon in his hybrid form, even though he doesn't believe dragons exist. While she would have liked to claim him right away, this was not an instalove story. Our couple negotiated an arrangement and kinda worked together toward a common goal. This was not any kind of touchy feely love story, and I felt somewhat disconnected from it all. I would have liked more character development and depth, or something to get me emotionally invested in the story. Aimi's female relatives did cause a few chuckles, but I would have also liked to see more humor injected into the story.

I voluntarily reviewed an advanced copy of this audiobook that I received from the publisher, Tantor Audio.